The grass may not be greening up, but it’s already time to play ball and New England Sports Network is ready to provide another sure sign of spring.

NESN will air all but nine of the 162 games on the Boston Red Sox regular-season schedule this year, starting with Sunday’s season-opening 8 p.m. game at Baltimore. Areas outside Boston and New England will see the game on ESPN2.

The nine games not available on NESN will be aired on Fox Network, ESPN, ESPN2, or Atlanta Superstation WTBS.

All 162 games will be on Boston radio flagship station WEEI (850 AM) and its affiliates throughout New England, including Bangor’s WZON (620 AM), Dover-Foxcroft’s WDME (103.1 FM), Houlton’s WHOU (100.1 FM), Ellsworth’s WDEA (1370 AM), and Rockland’s WRKD (1450 AM).

Joe Castiglione and Jerry Trupiano will start their 12th season in the radio broadcast booth together as the voices of the Red Sox. Castiglione is also entering the first year of a new, three-year contract renewal with the Sox, which will extend his broadcast tenure with the Sox to 24 years.

“You don’t plan years in advance. Sometimes you plan 13 weeks at a time, but I generally plan year to year, so I never thought I’d be the guy with the second-longest tenure in Red Sox broadcast history,” Castiglione said.

Former Sox broadcasters Ned Martin and Ken Coleman called Sox games for 31 and 20 years, respectively. This is Sox season No. 22 for the New Haven, Conn., native.

“It really doesn’t seem like I’ve been doing this that long,” Castiglione said in an interview at a Bangor appearance two months ago. “The seasons fly right by. I love what I’m doing. You have the best seat in the house, it’s a great ballclub, and they have a chance to win every year. A lot of times, people around Boston lose sight of that.”

Castiglione and Trupiano are both eagerly anticipating the coming season and both have high hopes for the Sox in 2004.

“Except for the 1992-94 era, the Red Sox have been competitive every year, so one of these years, everything will break right,” Castiglione said. “Why not this year?”

Sunday doubleheader

The Boston Bruins and Red Sox will share the broadcast schedule on NESN Sunday as NESN starts 12 hours of continuous original and/or live programming at noon with the Bruins weekly review program called Bruins Breakaway and hosted by Eric Frede, former sports director at Bangor TV station WVII.

NESN’s Boston Globe pregame report follows at 12:30 p.m. and then a live broadcast of the Bruins’ road game at New Jersey comes on at 1 p.m.

After the Bruins’ postgame Banknorth Overtime show around 3:30 p.m., NESN will rebroadcast the 90-minute special “Cowboy Up! The Wild Ride of the 2003 Red Sox” before a Red Sox season preview show at 6 p.m., a pregame show at 7 p.m., and the Boston-Baltimore baseball game at 8 p.m. That’s followed by the Extra Innings postgame show around 11 p.m.

NESN isn’t the only one offering pregame and postgame Sox coverage as Fox Sports Net New England is taking a swing with Mohegan Sun/Boston Herald New England Sports Tonight at 6:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. each weekday.

Listen up!

Major League Baseball is offering fans not living in areas reached by their favorite team’s affiliate or flagship radio stations a chance to still follow every pitch, swing, and catch.

For $14.95, Internet users can subscribe to MLB’s Gameday Audio and listen to more than 2,400 game broadcasts for all 30 teams this season.

For more information or to subscribe, log onto the Major League Baseball Web site (MLB.com) or the sites of any MLB team, such as boston.redsox.mlb.com.

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600, or at aneff@bangordailynews.net